Education ‘gamification’ innovators set for January launch in primary schools

Having spent over two decades as a teacher in New Zealand, the UK and Ireland, working with kids who "have, or supposedly have, behavioural problems", Gotcha Ninjas CEO, Tony Riley began to believe that specific behavioural data held the key to understanding why certain pupils suffered particular issues. "Teachers weren't recording data as such," he tells The Irish Times, "they were saying 'that kid is causing this problem' rather than going into why that's happening."

As he collected data on classroom behaviour, work progress and attendance records, he fed all the information back into an increasingly complex spreadsheet. What Reilly was left with was enough information “to almost predict to the day” when one child might miss a morning in school, when another may have their homework only half done and so on.

While he had all the data and the bones of an idea of how to incorporate it into a games-based classroom aid, it wasn't until July last year – when he met Gotcha Ninjas eventual CTO, Fionnuala Healy – that the company began to take shape.

“Basically our platform has these ninjas who catch kids being good,” says Riley of the cloud-based social learning solution which is currently being trialled in 42 primary schools across Ireland before launching worldwide in January.

Running alongside the normal school day, each pupil has an avatar which they tap every morning to indicate their attendance in class, while throughout the day individual or team performance in various tasks and subjects is easily assigned to those avatars by their teacher.

“It’s a cute and quick way for collecting all that data and getting it back in one place where the teacher and kids can see what was going on and then inform the parents about how well their kids are getting on. The kids feel like they’re playing a game and getting rewarded for it,” says Riley.

He continues: “Primary school teachers are all traditionally using star charts, stickers or stamps. It’s just the next step-up by introducing technology.”

Adds Healy: “There are really interactive features like mapping the five next steps for each pupil. Maybe one child has been quiet this week, another has done everything that’s asked of them but no more than that, and then there’s someone who has caused quite a lot of issues. The way of getting everyone in the class motivated [is to] then individualise [the data] and individualise rewards for positive behaviour.”

The web-based nature of the platform means the “game” can be used solely on the teacher’s interactive whiteboard if necessary, though it can be accessed through any connected device in the classroom should each child have a tablet PC to hand.

While this classroom platform will be a free product, further paid-for iterations of Gotcha Ninjas will be aimed at school principals (allowing them to “make data informed decisions in resource planning”) and parents, with the latter “providing a link between the school and the home” as well as being adaptable for “extracurricular activities outside of the classroom”.

A busy 16 months since the pair first met has seen them take part in the National Digital Research Centre's LaunchPad accelerator programme before taking up residence as one of the latest 10 companies picked to receive €40,000 in funding as well as a year's office space and mentoring at the Telefónica-backed Wayra Academy, based in O2's Dublin offices.

Healy tells how the Gotcha Ninjas platform has already gained interest from the US, UK and Australia, while a recent trip to the Digital Life Design conference in Tel Aviv saw several venture capital funds show interest in investment – something which Healy says the company will possibly look for “in May or June next year”.

In addition, they've just been awarded competitive start-up funding from Enterprise Ireland which will "be used towards understanding the market in the US" and elsewhere around the globe to further sales potential.

For now, Healy and Riley, alongside seven other Gotcha Ninjas staff – divided between animators, graphic designers, programmers, bloggers and a data visualisation expert – are concentrating on ironing out any kinks within the first classroom-based product before its release in the New Year.

“Most education software is based around a subject, be it maths, science or English, not a behaviour,” says Riley, “that’s where we’re different.”